The ninth annual Newcastle Music Festival in August will celebrate "the duo" in several forms.
There will be clarinet and piano duos, voice and piano, voice and fortepiano, piano and cello, piano and violin, and piano duos (with a few surprises thrown in).
This year's performers hail from Italy, the UK, Puerto Rico, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney, and, of course, our region.
Dance features in the festival for the first time, with dancers from Newcastle Dance Academy in Carnival of the Animals and Brubeck's Points on Jazz. The dancers will perform new choreography for these works by Jessica Miller, and will be joined by an ensemble of 10 local musicians led by Elizabeth Holowell in the original version.
Carnival of the Animals will be narrated by one of Newcastle's famous sons of stage and screen, Barry Shepherd.
This year's festival welcomes duo pianists Duo Mimesi from Italy, with the world premiere of a new work for four hands by one half of the duo, Federico Bucaioni. Miriam Allan will perform songs by Schubert, Mozart and Haydn, with Erin Helyard from Pinchgut Opera on fortepiano.
Coady Green, a pianist who recently performed in Carnegie Hall, appears with singer Linda Barcan in a program of art song by Gustav Mahler and three Australian composers: Ross Edwards, Ross Fiddes and Stephen Lalor. Green will also perform Robert Schumann's Kinderszenen on piano. This work gives the concert its name: Scenes From Childhood.
Guitar and flamenco dances with Paco Lara and Friends will provide an exciting musical contrast, as well as festival favourites the Dungeon Big Band, led by Heather Price, performing Big Band Classics.
Opera Cocktails this year features Patricia Turner (soprano), Elizabeth Cooper (mezzo soprano) and Michael Kaufmann (tenor) at Fullerton Cove venue, The Barn at Stanley Park. Tamburlaine Organic Wines and a finger-food supper are included in the ticket cost.
Former Novocastrians in this year's festival are clarinettist Mitchell Berick and singers Linda Barcan and Miriam Allan.
Remember the beautiful music sung at the funeral of the duke of Edinburgh? The lone soprano in the quartet of singers, bringing such dignity and beauty to that moving occasion, was none other than Newcastle-born Allan, and we are thrilled to welcome her for not one, but two performances in this year's festival.
Also returning to Newcastle is violinist Madeleine Easton whose appearance last year in the final concert was a festival highlight. With her ensemble, Bach Akademie Australia, Easton presents a special concert featuring Miriam Allan and her father Christopher Allan singing Bach's wry Coffee Cantata and other Bach works.
Madeleine Easton performed with the English Baroque Soloists at the coronation of King Charles III.
Festival regular Erin Sweetman will appear in three concerts, showcasing her pianistic virtuosity. She appears on opening night with Mitchell Berick, performing, among other works, Debussy's beloved Premiere Rhapsodie.
Sweetman also performs with Greg Smith in Brubeck's Points on Jazz and Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, and will provide piano support to violinist Gabrielle Wikstrom, cellist Sienna Copanceanu and singer Georgia Dulley in Rising Stars.
Sweetman also provides repetiteur services to the Festival Choir during the rehearsal period.
The Festival Choir with Festival Voices Newcastle will perform Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle, a work neither petite nor solemn but delightfully joyful. The performance will again involve two pianos (and a harmonium) supporting the two choirs with four superb vocal soloists.
Puerto Rican singer Meechot Marrero is the soprano soloist, with Elizabeth Cooper (mezzo soprano), Brad Cooper (tenor) and Christopher Richardson (bass). Registrations are now open for the Festival Choir: if you are a singer from the region, able to read music, and interested in participating in this concert, please register on the festival's website in time for the first rehearsal on June 23.
And music lovers can expect to be stunned and inspired by the expanded Christ Church Camerata performing Gustav Mahler's beloved First Symphony in the premiere of a new arrangement by Newcastle's talented composer and conductor, Dr David Banney.
You can view and book all these concerts on the festival's website, newcastlemusicfestival.org.au. Newcastle Music Festival runs from August 6 to 16.
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